Office For All, Everywhere

Blur And Focus Photos On A Mac

My Mac is home to a number of one-trick pony applications; tools and utilities that don’t cost much and are not complicated to use. One perfect example of this is a 99-cent app called PicFocus.

As the name implies, PicFocus puts focus into a photo exactly where you want it. Maybe you need an object in the photo to stand out– add color to the object and leave everything else in the background in black and white. That’s easier said than done but with the right tools you can turn a simple image into a standout.

What else?

Just run a brush around the edge of an object. The color stays in the foreground while background can be whatever you want.

Controls are simple and straightforward to the point of self explanatory. Adjust the brush size with a slider bar and click Apply to view the changes. Reset is undo. Even the background has slider bar controls but with a numeric guide.

Adjust contrast, add a vignette, apply warmth and change saturation.

All that from a 99-cent Mac app.

Wait. There’s more.

Righthand sidebar tools change the options. Select a brushed area, or add a circle to highlight a specific object on the photo and blur out everything else. Add or adjust sharpness, brightness, saturation, details, and more with simple slider bars for each tool.

As a guy who learned to use Photoshop the hard way– trial and error– apps like PicFocus are an easy way to take mundane photos and give them the highlights and focus in minutes that would have taken half an hour in professional level applications.

As much of a bargain as PicFocus is– 99-cents is dirt cheap for an application that can handle dozens of RAW image formats– trial and error is your friend.

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